Adobe Photoshop

In this chapter from Photoshop CC: Visual QuickStart Guide (2014 release), you’ll learn about the Camera Raw tools and tabs; choose workflow options for Camera Raw; apply cropping and straightening; and correct photos for defects, such as poor contrast, under- or overexposure, color casts, blurriness, geometric distortion, and noise. You will also learn how to enhance your photos with special effects, such as a vignette, grain texture, or tint; retouch blemishes; access Camera Raw controls from Photoshop; save and synchronize Camera Raw settings among related photos; then finally, open your corrected photos into Photoshop.

Adobe Lightroom mobile synchronizes photos between your Lightroom library on a computer and an iPad or iPhone, but it's more than just an image conduit. Jeff Carlson, author of Adobe Lightroom mobile: Your Lightroom on the Go, shares some of his favorite tips for working with Lightroom mobile, from automatically importing new shots to copying adjustments between photos and environments.

In this chapter from Photoshop CC: Visual QuickStart Guide (2014 release), you’ll blur areas of an image using the Field Blur, Iris Blur, Tilt-Shift, Path Blur, and Spin Blur filters (collectively called the Blur Gallery). And you will apply sharpening via the Smart Sharpen, Unsharp Mask, and Shake Reduction filters, and via the Sharpen tool.

This excerpt from Adobe Photoshop CC Classroom in a Book (2014 release) shows how you can create 3D objects in Photoshop—or import 3D objects that have been created elsewhere—and print them directly from Photoshop.

This chapter pushes deep into Bret Malley's four favorite adjustment layers (along with their subterranean features), as well as the Photoshop filters that he finds come in most handy for composite work.

With the Lightroom 5.4 release in April 2014, Adobe introduced Lightroom mobile, a subscription service that enables two-way syncing between the desktop application and the new Lightroom for iPad. John Evans, contributor to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5: Classroom in a Book, takes Lightroom mobile for a test drive.

Many times an image will need just a little color correction and not much else. While you can employ several methods to do this, using a Curves adjustment layer can be a quick solution that gives you some flexibility without overwhelming you with options.

Photoshop educator Dan Moughamian brings you up to date on another new feature that’s part of the Photoshop 14.2 update, available to Creative Cloud subscribers. Smart Objects have always been a valuable part of the Photoshop workflow, whether you're a graphic artist or photographer. However, (embedded) Smart Objects can have a downside in that they can substantially increase the file size of your documents. Dan shows you how Smart Objects just got smarter, allowing images to be linked to one another rather than being embedded, providing several advantages.

Photoshop instructor Dan Moughamian walks you through the Perspective Warp command, the latest addition to Photoshop's arsenal of image transformation tools. Rather than being focused solely on image correction tasks (such as straightening lines), Perspective Warp also allows you to make subtle changes to the camera's viewpoint. This innovation, as well as other new features and JDI enhancements, are available as part of the Photoshop 14.2 update on Creative Cloud.